Scott
by Gumnut
Summary: His decision was already made, and before it could find him, Virgil had already jumped. Marks & Wings, wing!fic, hurt/comfort, WIP


Title: Scott

Part 1

A Tale of Marks & Wings

Author: Gumnut

Jul 2019

Fandom: Thunderbirds Are Go 2015/ Thunderbirds TOS

Rating: Teen

Summary: His decision was already made, and before it could find him, Virgil had already jumped.

Word count: 2775

Spoilers & warnings: Hurt/Comfort, Action

Timeline: Before 'John', after 'Gordon'.

Author's note: This has been a work in progress for a while. I very much intend to continue, but I'm held up by a multitude of other fics. Will attend to as soon as possible, because I have plans.

Disclaimer: Mine? You've got to be kidding. Money? Don't have any, don't bother.

-o-o-o-

"SCOTT!"

Ahead of him, his brother jerked as a weapon appeared through the open hatch of the plane. He heard Scott gasp over comms as a flash of light signalled a gunshot, the roaring wind at this altitude stealing away any sound.

Scott fell limp, his body falling. Virgil gasped as his brother's safety line caught him hard, his body now being dragged through the air by the plane.

He bobbed, lifeless.

"Scott! Can you hear me?!" The engineer instinctively flattened himself to the plane's fuselage. "John, give me vitals!"

His orbiting brother's voice was shaking despite his familiar calm tone. "He's alive."

A pair of hands reached through that open door and to Virgil's horror, calmly unclipped Scott's safety line.

"No!" But the word had no effect and his brother disappeared into the jet stream. Virgil's heart stopped.

The gun appeared again, looking for Virgil, but his decision was already made, and before it could find him, Virgil had already jumped.

The wind caught him immediately and he narrowed his resistance to pick up speed, aiming for the distant form of his falling brother.

"Virgil, what are you doing?!"

"Saving Scott."

"You're too high."

"I know."

"You'll be going too fast and you won't be able to support his weight."

He was getting closer. Scott was tumbling limp.

"I know, but I have to try."

John made an indecipherable sound over comms, but Virgil didn't need him to vocalise, he could feel his brother's fear in his heart. "I have to try, John." Almost there. "I'm sorry."

He barrelled into Scott, catching the man in his arms, they tumbled for a few seconds until Virgil was able to stabilise them.

Now the most important thing was to kill off as much speed as possible. He was still too high to lift, the air too cold and thin to support his wings, and if they didn't slow down, and if he didn't manage the right angle of descent, when he did open his wings, he was at a very high risk of breaking them.

In any case, it was going to hurt.

-o-o-o-

John's heart was in his throat. Every line of his body was registering the tension in Virgil's like a phantom ache and there wasn't a damn thing he could do to help.

He had both Thunderbirds One and Two under his control, but other than that, all he could do was watch his brothers plummet, possibly to their deaths.

"John, what the hell is going on?" Gordon.

"Scott's been shot and thrown off the plane. Virgil jumped after him."

"What?!" John felt the fear hit Gordon and he winced. "How high were they?"

"Too high."

His eyes tracked their trajectory, calculating where they were going to...land. A flick of a button. "Kayo, drop everything." It was a couple of words, but she would know what he meant. Another flick of his fingers and he sent her the coordinates. She would be there in minutes.

But she would be too late.

"John?" Gordon's voice was desperate. "What are you going to do?"

"Pray."

-o-o-o-

He managed to shift them into a shallower angle, an attempt to level them out as much as possible. He had even managed to buckle his harness to Scott, effectively tying them together. He tangled his feet in Scott's keeping his brother as parallel to his body as possible and directing their fall as best he could. As they finally punctured the upper cloud layer, he prepared to lift.

He could feel both John and Gordon with him and did his best to project what little reassurance he could. Heartfelt words. "Love you guys."

His feathers phased through his uniform, his wings manifesting folded as they always did, flapping erratically in the stream of wind.

A breath and he spread them, black cutting into the air like a pair of knives.

Until they caught, pulling both of them up. Virgil gasped as he struggled to hold them against both their speed and their combined weight. They were designed to only carry him and not much more. Scott was a lot much more, bulky and not very aerodynamic in his current state.

Virgil struggled to force them into a glide. Any glide. Every muscle strained, desperate to shed speed.

The ground was green and looming fast.

Last ditch effort and he spread to a full brake. His bones screamed under the pressure and his wings were wrenched backwards. His yell was stolen by the wind and then there were trees and leaves and bruises and he curled the best he could around his brother.

The world jumped up and hit him hard.

-o-o-o-

It was the pounding of his own heart that woke Scott.

It echoed the throb in his gut.

A groan.

One arm refused to move, the other was tangled in something. He struggled with it for a moment, but pain cut short any strenuous exploration.

Opening his eyes proved even more a challenge and it took him several attempts. When he did finally manage it all he found was darkness and shadows.

Visor. Helmet. He was wearing his helmet.

"Thhhunderbird F...ive?"

"Scott!"

"Aargh, don't shout." The throbbing shifted to his head.

"Lie Still. Kayo is en route."

"Wha-? Why?"

"Can you assess Virgil's condition?"

"Virgil?"

A pause and a definite swallow over comms. "Virgil is lying next to you. Can you see him?"

See him? "Virgil?"

Grey and black still obscured his vision. He fought to wrestle his tangled hand free. A stubborn yank, the shadows shifted and his arm came loose. He raised it and pushed the shadows away from his visor.

A shift in focus.

The shadows became feathers. Black feathers.

Limp black feathers.

"Virgil?!"

He was lying under his brother's wing. It was curled around him.

He dropped his hand to the ground beside and found more feathers. Feeling frantically around, he felt the shape of his brother's wing bones and muscles and turning his head ever so carefully between throbs, he came face to face with a cracked helmet.

Shit! "Virgil!"

Scott tried to move, to twist around to both reach for his brother and to get himself off those flight structures, his weight would no doubt be uncomfortable, but any movement and his gut screamed.

"Scott!" It was shouted from orbit.

"Virgil!"

"SCOTT! Lay still! You're injured." John's voice was verging on a very uncharacteristic frantic. "Kayo is inbound."

"Is he? Is he?"

"He's alive, but unconscious."

"Can...can you feel him?" He swallowed his throat ever so dry. "What the hell happened?"

"Kayo is almost there. I've sent Thunderbird One for Gordon and Alan."

John didn't answer his questions and that said more than any answer could have.

"John, talk to me."

"You were shot attempting to board a passenger plane at thirty-five thousand feet. The perpetrators cut your safety line. Virgil jumped after you."

His brain did the math of that equation and came up with some horrible results. "Virgil? C'mon, bro..."

No response.

Somewhere beyond his shadowy aspect powerful rocket engines swooped into a VTOL hover not far away. The feathers above him fluttered. He wanted to reach out and hold them still, prevent any more pain for his brother.

Braking from that height at that speed, with extra weight... "Virgil?"

"Sc-t?" A breathless rasp followed by a groan. The wing above Scott shifted and lifted, letting in grey light.

Scott blinked at the bright but cloud clogged sky.

Thunderbird S hovered off to his left. Virgil groaned again, followed by a gasp and a whimper. His elevated wing was half folded and as Scott stared at it, he realised it was trembling. "Virgil?"

"I can't..." Another gasp and his brother let the wing drop back over Scott. "God." The wing landed gently like a blanket, keeping Scott's head free, but draping over the rest of him.

It gave Scott an easy view of its other side.

Scott swore.

From Virgil's shoulders, across his wing arm, feathers had been scraped off, leaving the skin red and bloodied. Several primaries stuck up at odd angles, several were shredded. A single piece of greenery stuck out at random.

Feet running in sand and Kayo appeared up close. "Scott?"

"Virgil..."

Their security officer's eyes widened and then she was beside his brother. But Virgil protested. "N', Scott shot." Another groan and the wing above Scott lifted again, exposing his body to the light. Virgil again attempted to fold his wing out of the way. This time he cried out in pain. The wing fell at an awkward angle and left Virgil panting into his comms. "S-ry."

Now Scott was mostly uncovered, but Kayo could not reach him without stepping on Virgil's wings.

Virgil made another attempt to retract his wings.

"Virgil! Stop!" The yell came over comms in duet, both Gordon and John at once.

John. "I'm coming down. Eos, take control of Thunderbird One."

Scott didn't hear her affirmative, but he didn't have to. The thought of his brother beside him to help was enough.

Time became strange for a moment and the world faded to somewhere distant.

"Sc-tt!"

He jumped and his gut screamed at him. "Virg..." His breath rushed out.

"Kay, help him."

"Virgil-"

"Help him!"

A gasp over comms as Kayo hesitantly stepped on his brother's wing to reach Scott's side.

"Virgil, no..." But the edges of his vision were greying.

Virgil's voice was tense and hoarse. "H-ve to save you."

Scott wanted to answer but his mouth no longer answered his demands. Kayo was saying something to him, but he couldn't hear her.

Pressure on his gut and pain blossomed in blinding white and stole him away.

-o-o-o-

The space elevator journey to Earth had never taken so long.

"Eos, can we descend any faster?"

"You know the answer to that, John."

Yes, he did, but he was human and asking the question killed a second or two.

Gordon was a ball of tension in the corner of his mind.

Virgil...

Virgil was aware of both of them, in pain, desperate, and fumbling to protect them from himself.

John leant back in his support chair and closed his eyes. He wasn't one to lean into the link between them. He preferred to keep to his space, to his own thoughts, and to be solitary was in his nature, but no...he reached out, broadcasting reassurance and calm, drawing from his own strength and supporting his brother. "Virgil, relax." His voice over comms was from outside, but Virgil needed to hear him.

"John...Scott..."

"We are coming, Virgil. You've saved him. You can rest now."

A wave of sheer pain escaped from his brother's control and John couldn't help but wince. "We're coming, Virgil. We'll be there soon."

Outside the deceleration rockets fired, Eos catching him as the planet neared.

"John." Kayo cut into his meditation. "Scott needs a hospital now. Blood loss from an abdominal bullet wound. I'm pretty sure his right arm is broken, but it is pinned under Virgil."

Virgil flared in his mind.

"Virgil, no!" As Kayo said it, John knew she was too late.

Anything for his brothers. A flash of his brother's pain and Virgil's consciousness faded to almost nothing.

"Shit!" More profanity followed so colourful, John had to translate most of it.

As the elevator touched down on the lake beach beside Shadow, he unstrapped and was out the airlock as fast as his gravity deprived body could manage.

Virgil lay at the far end of a gouge the sand. His brothers had hit the forest on the far side of the lake, colliding with the tops of the trees before skimming like a skipping stone across the surface of the lake and ploughing into the sand on the shore like a meteorite. They had travelled a good ten metres at an angle to the shore before a grassy sandbank had brought them to a sudden halt.

Virgil was now flat on his back on the sand, wings fully spread and limp either side of him. Scott was sprawled across and pinning his left wing.

Both men were out cold.

Kayo was putting pressure on Scott's belly, but her eyes were frantic for her lover and as John approached closer, he realised why.

There was a piece of tree sticking out of the side of Virgil's left thigh. A pool of blood was forming beneath it.

John hurried to the first aid kit Kayo left lying on the sand. He grabbed wading and bandages and was reinforcing and wrapping his brother's leg before a word was passed between himself and his sister.

Scott's right arm was visibly broken. Virgil had obviously rolled off it to free his brother. But it was the red soaked wading under Kayo's hands that caused the most alarm.

That and the bent and broken feathers under her knees.

It was an unspoken rule to never touch feathers without explicit permission and if you did, you touched with the upmost gentleness and reverence. Their wings were very personal, a reflection of themselves that needed respect and space.

To see them underfoot...

John's heart lurched for his brother.

A sudden roar and Thunderbird One shot into their airspace. She shed speed in a cloud of breaking thrusters, so Alan it could have been in skywriting. The rocket plane spun into a VTOL stabilised hover before settling abruptly with a thump alongside Shadow.

One breath.

Two.

Another familiar roar reared up over the trees across the lake and Thunderbird Two arrived much more calmly. As Alan lowered Scott's pilot chair and Gordon clambered out of One, Eos carefully lowered Two in the field just beyond where Virgil and Scott had fallen. She didn't fit on the beach.

Gordon was dragging a hoverstretcher behind him, his feet churning up sand as he ran.

"J'hn."

His brother's presence in his mind flared up as he said his name. "Virgil!" Scrambling to gain his footing, John darted around his brother's wings and fell to his knees beside his head.

"Sc'tt?"

"Gordon and Alan are here." A breath. "We've got you."

"Go'd."

Then Scott was being secured and lifted gently onto the 'stretcher. Virgil's wing was freed and their eldest brother was being rushed over to One. A flicker of VTOL and Alan was flying Scott to Toronto and the nearest medical facility.

Virgil groaned and attempted to sit up.

"No!" Three voices all at once.

But Virgil managed to get his back off the ground with a grunt and a whimper. John attempted to catch him as he struggled, his hand brushing against his brother's back.

It slipped in moisture and came back red.

Oh, god.

"H'lp me sit up, please." It was desperate and drenched in pain. The mass of echoed pain in the back of John's head clarified, He had to bite back a whimper of his own.

Gordon caught his eyes and his brother was straddling Virgil's legs, reaching for his hands. Kayo appeared beside John.

And Virgil slowly sat up.

His brother's cry of pain hurt as much as seeing the grazed skin and broken feathers across both Virgil's wings and back. His uniform was shredded, his laser torn from its mounting, only his baldric and some of the padding had survived. Raw skin bled red and was caked in sand.

The phase point where his wings interacted with his uniform flickered.

Still straddling his brother's legs, Gordon carefully removed Virgil's helmet and brought his head down to rest on his shoulder.

Another muffled whimper.

Virgil's wings were dragging and limp, the feathers bent against the ground. With a nod at Kayo, John gently moved both of the pinions into a more comfortable position, before grabbing a lasercutter from the medkit.

Moments later, Virgil's baldric fell to the ground, followed by the top half of his uniform.

His brother let out a definite sigh of relief, sagging even further into Gordon's embrace.

"How are we going to get him on to Two?" It was whispered by Kayo. Her. Fingers were twitching towards his brother as if she wanted to reach out and hold him in Gordon's stead.

John let out a trembling sigh. "We're going to have to sedate him." He couldn't bear to put his brother through the pain that moving him would involve. It wasn't the best solution, but...

Virgil suddenly sagged and Gordon had to struggle to keep him upright. "Virg?"

There was no answer.

Gordon fumbled for his brother's pulse, his eyes flicking to John when he found it. A check for breathing. "We need to move him now."

Kayo was already running towards Thunderbird Two.

-o-o-o-


End file.
